>> Occam code is posited to exploit structure, not merely be a compact >> description or representation.
Michael> Much as I like Occam, that's a pretty strong claim for any Michael> language designed primarily for ease of use by human Michael> engineers, indeed for any 'substrate' without an integral Michael> optimisation mechanism. My bad language. I didn't mean code written in the language Occam (which I'd forgotten about, don't know anything about it). I meant, code in some constrained language (for example, constrained by being very concise) that solves so many different problems that such constrained code wouldn't exist unless it was fundamentally exploiting structure underlying the problem-- code exemplifying my generalized Occam's Razor hypothesis. (I don't think I used the term "occam code" in the book. This is another reason why offhand posts on the subject are strewing confusion...) Many people argued that Lisp and Michael> Prolog are/were 'posited to exploit structure' at the Michael> language level, and while that worked well for a few early Michael> projects (such as AM) I think the ultimate error of this Michael> assumption was a significant contributing factor to the AI Michael> winter. In our system we're using a language optimised as Michael> much as possible for AI code generation (as opposed to human Michael> use; not an uncommon strategy in AGI), somewhat like a cross Michael> between Erlang, Occam and Flare (the language the SIAI was Michael> trying to design back in 2001). Even still, almost all the Michael> modelling power comes from the code pattern library and Michael> associated mechanisms for reasoning about code, not the Michael> language (which primarily makes the latter easier to write Michael> and provides substrate support for various forms of more Michael> sophisticated reflective reasoning). Michael> Michael Wilson, Director of Research and Development, Michael> Bitphase AI Ltd Web demos page: http://www.bitphase.com/apex Michael> ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: Michael> http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your Michael> options, please go to: Michael> http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303 ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
